Friday Night Notes

smooth... but dead...


Strange how the Holy Spirit works.  At one time in the West, the Lord was saving many.  The fear of the Lord was strong... even unbelievers were influenced and affected. That's all gone now.  Been gone for quite some time.  Pastor Tim and I braved the cold and laboured for the Gospel sakes for hours, and we have no conversion story to tell.  We saw no penitent soul seeking God's grace, no wanderer finding rest in the Saviour.

Half way around the world, in Africa, a brother-in-the-Lord sent us this preaching report just last week:

We launched the Jesus Christ the Hope of the Nations Evangelistic Ministries (whose works include
house-to-house evangelism and open air preaching of the gospel (the pronouncement of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ) within the vicinity of the New Testament Baptist Church of Monrovia; the event brought together 400-500 people every evening for two days; and many professions of faith in Jesus Christ were made; we don’t know those that really got saved but the Holy Spirit knows. Please pray for many of those who confessed Christ as savior during the event; they are currently in our New Believer Class, that they will understand salvation in Christ.

And it doesn't end there, within the same report:

Men were sent from a nearby town (Weleputa) to come and ask us to carry the true gospel in their town; and in response to their request, four church planters went along with me to preach the gospel,
and amazingly after the people heard the message of the gospel, 100 people professed faith in Jesus Christ and we were immediately given a property (5 acres of land) free of charge by the elders of the town to build a church building for worship.

Will the age continue long enough for African missionaries to come to North America, to evangelize the heathen?  I mean seriously... 500 people making professions of faith during an evangelistic effort by honest, fundamentalist preachers... and men begging the preachers to come to their city with the Gospel!  If I saw this happen during one of our nights of evangelism, Pastor Tim would have to be picking me up off the ground!

It's all pretty depressing.  As far as a night of evangelism goes, tonight wasn't too difficult.  It's winter, so it's a little cold, but nothing we couldn't handle.  There were decent crowds in the marketplace and despite to higher traffic, no one really gave us much grief.  So really, nothing serious to gripe about... but there's a spiritual deadness... a total apathy toward God that breaks an evangelists heart.

We had a few one-on-one conversations tonight, but mostly with religious souls that opposed our preaching (Catholics, so-called Jehovah's Witness, Muslims).  I spoke with a group of young ladies who had been drinking quite a bit.  At first they were mocking, but my good conversation and answers shamed them... a watched them walk away with their heads down.  Sad sight.

Well, it's late and there really isn't much else to add.  Who know what the Lord will do?  Hopefully, we will see some fruits from all our labour in the near future...

To God be glory.


Rand